“Ah, the greatest truth is spoken at last.”
“I have only spoken honestly.”
“Honesty is not truth,” Asaf said, dismissively. “One can speak clearly and in complete honesty, yet speak falsehoods the Adversary would be proud of.”
“Could you please allow him to speak, Father?”
Asaf’s chuckle ended in a coughing fit. Ricky watched Shaista Khan’s expression shift from mild annoyance through deep concern, before settling back into the courtier’s mask.
With a start, Ricky realized that Shaista was staring directly at him.
“You, up-timers,” Shaista Khan said. “I have heard that you can cure the sick. Have you brought some miracle cure to treat my father?”
“We cannot work miracles,” Ricky said carefully. “And neither of us are as deeply trained in medicine as those that saved Dara.”
“And what are you trained in?”
“They are road builders,” Asaf put in. “They attempted to sell such skills to Shah Jahan.” He coughed again, but only a few times.
“Your father is right,” Ricky said. “But we do know some basics about medicine that might be helpful, if you will allow me a few questions?”
Asaf waved permission, wiping his mouth with a handkerchief.
“Do you smoke?”
Asaf nodded, another coughing fit silencing him.
“Stop.”
“But we were advised that it helps with the digestion,” Shaista Khan said.
“It might, but is a gut problem killing him or are his lungs?” Ricky said.
“His physicians say it is a combination of things, and they recommended smoking a mixture of opium and hashish to calm his—”
“Jesus!” Ricky blurted.
“What?” Shaista Khan asked.
“Are you in much pain?” Ricky asked Asaf Khan directly.
“Only when I cough,” Asaf Khan said.
“Well, I am no physician,” Ricky said, “but the doctors back hom—er, up-time, were very certain that smoking anything was bad for your health. I mean, so sure about it they managed to pass a bunch of laws about where and how you could smoke regular tobacco. Not in West Virginia—some parts of the state were too dependent on tobacco as a cash crop—but out in California, they were working to make it damn near illegal.”
“Cali—”
“A state in the…” He shook his head. “There is too much to tell in one night. Please trust me when I say, the physicians of the future all agree that smoking is bad for you.”
Shaista looked at his father. “No more bhang for you!”
The older man grinned. “Deny a dying man his pleasures, will you?”
“I will, if it means you’ll be around a bit longer.”
“Ricky,” Bobby said, looking uncomfortable.
Ricky looked a question at his old friend.
“Withdrawal?” Bobby said, in English.
“Shit,” Ricky answered in the same language.
“What is it?” Shaista and Jadu asked at the same time.
“My friend reminds me that…Well, how much are you smoking?” he asked Asaf.
“Four to six pipes a day,” Shaista answered for his father.
“All right, then…you should drop that off by, say, one pipe a day each week for the next five weeks. The…” He racked his brain for the Persian word for withdrawal but couldn’t figure it out and had to work around it. “The absence of opium may make him very ill if you cut him off completely.”
Shaista did not look surprised by this revelation. “I had wondered. We are familiar with the illness that comes after long use of opium.”
“Meaning: you were testing me.” Ricky said the words carefully, hoping to avoid giving offense.
“Of course I was, and will be,” Shaista said, equally neutral. “Whatever proofs were provided to Shah Jahan were not provided to us. We would be fools to simply take you at your word.”
“And no one ever took Asaf Khan for a fool,” Jadu said.
“God willing, there is still time,” Asaf Khan said.
They laughed together, and Ricky felt more hopeful about their mission for the first time since arriving in Patna.
Chapter 31
Agra
Red Fort, Harem
The balcony was crowded with harem inmates, everyone watching as more than a thousand horsemen rode away from the fortress. Jahanara and her favorites were notably absent. There was much muttering and some consternation, but no tears.
Shedding a tear for an exile, no matter how important he was thought to be, would not be politic. Not in light of Dara’s commands. Roshanara had to hide a feral, vindicated contentment behind a bland expression and false utterances of worry for their future.
For there was much for Dara’s supporters to be concerned about. The palace had been abuzz with rumors of Aurangzeb’s approach for days now, and every road out of Agra was swollen with people fleeing the conflict and siege everyone knew would not spare the city, so the gathered women watched and worried as Dara threw the best part of his forces away.
To an outsider, the exile of Amir Salim Gadh Yilmaz must appear the absolute pinnacle of folly, but to those who knew the first thing of life at the imperial court, it was quite clear Dara had been left with very little choice. Rumor or not, an umara, no matter how highly placed, having—or even attempting to have—relations with an inmate of the imperial harem was a matter of honor that must be treated with the utmost seriousness. It did not matter that the woman was not a wife or concubine of the emperor, for any harem was meant to be sacrosanct, the sole preserve of the man for whom it was sanctuary. The merest rumor of impropriety had been enough to shake the court to its very foundation.
Exiling the man was excessive only if Dara were absolutely certain the rumors about what had gone on between Salim and Jahanara were purely a fabrication, a dark fantasy concocted by their enemies at court and beyond.
But he could not know. Not for certain. That was the deadly brilliance of it. Roshanara spent a giddy instant wishing she had been the author of such a daring play. But then reconsidered in light of the great stakes at risk, and was glad enough she had not tried to spread such talk.
Which set her to thinking…Roshanara knew Nur, for one, would have
